


My Heart Written on My Skin

by greygerbil



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-22
Updated: 2018-11-22
Packaged: 2019-08-27 12:35:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16702669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greygerbil/pseuds/greygerbil
Summary: Davos expected to be given gold when he brought onions to Storm's End, coin which he planned to use to start a new life. Fate, however, decreed that the reward for his bravery would be something greater.





	My Heart Written on My Skin

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The_Plaid_Slytherin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Plaid_Slytherin/gifts).



> I love the idea of Davos and Stannis being soulmates because they just belong together, so thanks for giving me the idea! Due to soulmate marks being on two men or two women at times, which is seen as the will of the gods, I imagine this version of Westeros will allow people of the same gender to be together.

Davos had always thought his soulmate’s first words were rather unhelpful and yet they never failed to make him smile when he thought of them. There was a raw charm in the bluntness, and a promise in how unspecific they were. They were not the artificially convoluted sentences you found in romantic minstrel’s songs, but the kind you could expect to hear in the real world. Written in black ink under his skin, from the pulse point on his left hand up to the crook of his elbow, were the words: _Seven hells, who are you?_ When he was five, he had been told by a septon, who read them off Davos’ spindly left arm with a slightly displeased expression on his face.

By that time, judging just by the words, Davos could have already met his soulmate a dozen times. Maybe on the skin of a king, the words would have been remarkable, but for one such as himself? Running into drunkards when he played in the streets, snatching rotting fruit from the carts of peasants at the end of the market day, sitting at the quay watching the ships go by with wide eyes as sailors shoved him out of their way – there were a lot of people who asked who, in seven hells, he was, without really caring for an answer because what they meant to tell him was that he was nobody. As Davos grew into a smuggler with a wish to keep his head down so it would not be put up on a spike, nothing much changed about that. Some people knew of him and his talents now, but they were the ones who got their information by whispers and never by asking. The rest still had no real interest in learning the answer to their question, and he heard it when he found himself accidentally idling in the way of some lordling’s horse in the city streets, or from men who were looking to start a tavern brawl.

It was in his answer that Davos hoped he would find the key, though. If his soulmate’s words were as common as Davos himself was, then hopefully the gods had put recognisable words on his own tongue. The problem was, of course, that most of the time he had not answered that question at all, but simply got out of harm’s way. Every soulmate exchange had a sentence for each soulmate, though, did it not? Was silence an answer? Would he miss his soulmate because his own words would be as commonplace as theirs? Had he already?

His unknown soulmate often came into his head in moments like these, when Davos was not sure that his own sentence, whatever it was, would not soon be erased off his would-be lover’s skin like it had never been there at all. When a soulmate died, their words were given to the wind and the gods, after all. For good luck, Davos clasped his hand over the letters on his left arm and then gripped the oars tightly, easing them quietly into the water. Rowing the boat was hard work that left him sweat-soaked and panting, but the sails had rasped and snapped in the wind and Davos had been sure eventually the Redwyne men would hear them, so he had taken them down.

He was used to steering the ship on his own, which was fortunate, for this was an endeavour few would have been insane enough to join in with, and Davos might not in good conscience have allowed them to do so. For one, even if Davos made it through the barricade of war ships studding the sea around Durran’s Point, and then managed not to end in a pile of driftwood at the stones of Shipbreaker Bay, it would leave him in a besieged castle which might still fall to the weakness of its leader or because of the usurper’s defeat many miles from here.

But while he could not speak for this Robert Baratheon, his younger brother, who was holding Storm’s End, did not seem to be in immediate danger of surrendering. He’d stuck it out for almost a whole year so far and people whispered that he would rather start eating leather boots than give up this castle, which was so crucial to the war effort. If reports were to be believed, he would have to make good on those rumours soon because there could be no morsel of food left in Storm’s End anymore. Yet, Stannis Baratheon was not yielding.

That was where Davos came in.

His boat sat low in the water. It was a swift little thing, which was currently slowed because it was filled to the last corner and gap with salted fish and onions. Gently, Davos pulled it towards the steep cliff to avoid a spire just barely peeking out of the water, with an eye always on the ships that floated around Storm’s End like wolves circling wounded prey, flickering torches marking their vague shapes in the night. Right ahead was Storm’s End, a gigantic shadow against the dark sky. Its high walls towered black over the water, and above that loomed its massive solitary central tower. There was no place for anchorage here, Davos knew, but friends had told him of the cavern in the rock by the side of the castle. The mooring area was supposedly closed by a portcullis, but, being brigaded on seaside as the inhabitans were, Davos was sure he’d find it guarded, which meant he could make his case to someone.

Since he did not dare light a torch himself and the night was cloudy and moonless, Davos had to get right up to the walls in the hopes of finding the entrance. He course-corrected whenever he heard the tell-tale scraping sound of wood against stone, used his oars to escape the jagged line of the cliff and feel for spikes in the deep of the water on the other side. A fine mist came down from the sky, rain as light as snow, which made it even harder to see. He kept his breathing slow. Years as a smuggler had taught that there was never a worse moment to lose your calm than when you were one wrong swing of the oars away from hearing your hull tear on an underwater reef.

Finally, a dark hollow opened before him in the wall. Davos turned sharp left and pushed forward, carefully navigating the winding passageway. There were murder holes above him, but it was so dark he could not see if they were manned; he imagined he heard shuffling and murmuring, though, and cold fear tightened his ribcage as he prayed no overeager soldier would start shooting his bow before he could say a word.

After long moments, he saw the dim shine of a fire around a bend and when he turned it, a thick portcullis ahead glimmered wetly, the rust on it blood-red in the flames.

Voices grew silent as whoever was behind it watched Davos approach. Through the portcullis, he saw three men in the light of wall-mounted torches, two of whom were drawing their swords, the third cocking a crossbow at Davos, who raised his hands to show he was unarmed.

“Seven hells, who are _you_?” the man standing in the middle snapped.

The one who had spoken to him was tall, still powerful with his wide chest and shoulders, yet looking like a stag might after he had starved through the winter, proud, but with every bone and sinew showing. His short dark hair made him look paler than he already was and he gripped his sword tightly, feet planted securely on the ground, ready to strike a blow. He wore the Baratheon livery. His age was hard to gauge, for he had the face of one barely twenty, and the tight, exhausted, unhappy expression of a much older man.

“My name won’t mean anything to you, my lord, but I’m someone who finds his way easily in the dark. It’s Davos, though, and I’m a smuggler. I’ve brought food.”

The stranger stared at Davos as if he’d seen a ghost, speechless as the two other knights looked to him for guidance. Davos’ ship had reached the iron grate and bumped against it almost gently.

“Would you open up for me? My boat is hardly big enough to carry enough soldiers to overwhelm the garrison, but you are welcome to search it, anyway, of course.”

The man hesitated for a moment before he finally nodded his head and pointed with his chin at the soldier holding the sword. In the shadows, Davos heard the crank and clang of machinery. Slowly, the gate before him lifted. Water rained down from iron spikes onto his head as the boat slid silently under. With his oars, he pushed it towards the stone wharf the men were standing on.

“Keep your weapon on him,” the man who gave the orders told the soldier with the crossbow as Davos’ boat drew up. When the portcullis halted with a clank and shake and then reversed its direction, he grabbed on to the side of Davos’ boat and pulled himself up. Davos had just drawn in the oars when the man stomped over, walked behind him and grabbed him by the back of his shirt, sword at his throat.

 _Calm_ , Davos told himself. He’d known the people here would be desperate and paranoid.

“Open the hold,” the man told him. He was much taller than Davos, as he became acutely aware now, hearing his voice from right above his ear. Once more he brushed his left arm, as he’d always done for good luck.

“Yes,” Davos said, not daring to nod his head, and carefully stepped forward, waiting for the figure behind him to follow. Slowly, he knelt down to grab the rust-flecked iron ring and open the hatch.

The sharp stench of onions and fish greeted them. He glanced over his shoulder to see the man behind him look down, blue eyes doubtful and desperately hungry as he surveyed Davos’ crates. Finally, he sat down next to him and pried the lid off wooden box, which was filled to the brim with onions that rustled quietly as they moved.

“Go upstairs and call a dozen men here! Search the boat and unload the food into the granary if it’s safe!” he called to the knights.

The man got up and let his sword point at the deck, away from Davos, as he gave him a long look. He was not smiling, but the anger had left his face, though it was still stern as cold steel.

“I’m Stannis of House Baratheon,” he said.

Davos bowed. He had suspected it, seeing the coat of arms, but it was fortunate that he had met the leader of the brave defenders down here right away. It spared him repeating himself, and maybe also a fist in the face from an overeager knight ready to prove himself brave before his lord.

“Can I tie the boat down, my lord?” he asked.

“You may.”

Davos grabbed the rope and jumped over the side of the boat to wrap it around a thick post, securing it with a tight knot. The boat was in no danger of drifting out into the sea here, as this was only a small, round cave, an arm reaching into the rock, and the only entrance was blocked, but Davos would rather not swim to it to retrieve it. As he was finished with the rope, he found Stannis’ eyes still on him. He had climbed off the boat, too.

“Are you a supporter of my brother’s?”

His voice was cold.

“I have no head for politics,” Davos said carefully. “But I would not mind to see Lord Robert on the throne, and I think that is where he will be, provided his strongholds don’t crumble.”

“So what is it you want?”

“A reward,” Davos said, honestly, because to pretend he had risked his life out of the goodness of his heart was childish. Stannis’ story had impressed him, to be sure, but there were many brave generals in the lands these days.

Stannis nodded his head once. It was hard to say what he thought from the way he looked, his brow constantly drawn. If Davos had to settle on anything, he would say that Stannis seemed disturbed, but he couldn’t say for what reason. After a year of siege, he must have seen worse things than a smuggler riding a boat filled with onions.

The knights returned with reinforcements. Stannis and Davos stepped back as they swarmed the ship, lining up to pull up and receive the crates.

“What kind of reward? Just gold? There must be an easier way to make coin than to sneak past a full-blown blockade into a besieged castle, smuggler,” Stannis gave back.

“If it’s easy, everyone will do it,” Davos said with a smile. “And I need enough gold that I could turn this little ship into something that doesn’t have to be painted black.”

He’d make a good merchantman captain, Davos had often thought, the kind that knew enough about the sea to get wares across the ocean without falling to Lyseni pirates. However, once you had put your feet in the mud, the dirt stuck, and only coin could wash away your sins in the eyes of the many.

Stannis stared at the knights handing crates off the side of the boat. They seemed exceedingly careful not to let any tumble into the water. Davos saw that Stannis’ jaw was clenched, a muscle in it working. He was grinding his teeth.

“A smuggler with a conscience?” he said, finally.

Davos suppressed a laugh at the surprise in his voice.

“We’re just as likely to have them as any other man, my lord,” he said. “A few do, a few don’t.”

“And yet you break the king’s law.”

“My lord, are you not aiding your brother in a rebellion to _dethrone_ the king?”

Davos regretted the words as soon as they were off his tongue, but his heart was still beating fast from the narrow escape he’d made the ships and rocks tonight. It was foolish, though. He was old enough to know noblemen were not generally interested in smallfolk who had big enough mouths to point out their failings.

However, Stannis snorted, a trace of humour in the sound.

“My brother is the rightful king who will ensure a rule of law can even happen in this gods-forsaken land,” he said, after composing himself quickly. “But as long as the old laws were in place-”

“My lord, are you already picking a fight with the sailor who brought us food?”

They both turned. An old man with a long, grey beard almost covering his heavy maester’s chain threaded with a sprightly step between the knights and guards that were busily heaving the crates up the stairs.

“I’m not…” Stannis stopped himself abruptly and stepped around Davos. “But it’s just as well you’re here, Cressen. I have to talk to you. Alone.”

The maester looked confused, but nodded his head. He glanced at Davos.

“I’m sure you will find many men ready to talk to you,” he said. “No doubt they won’t all be so strict on past transgressions, considering our circumstances.”

Davos smiled at the maester. Truth be told, he had to admit he had not expected to be questioned quite so harshly right after offering the food, yet it didn’t feel like Stannis was getting ready to throw him into the water with weights on his feet, either. The questions were odd. Why did Stannis care if he had a conscience, or what he thought of the king’s law? Whether he despised Davos’ ilk or not, this was hardly the time to get to know him personally, and why would he even want to?

Either way, the maester was right that there were more than enough people ready to let the reasons he was here slide, pat him on the shoulder and drag him upstairs to sing his praises. Relief was palpable in the air and looking around at the thin, hollow faces, no explanation why was needed. Stannis had to be either very charismatic (though if that was the case, Davos hadn’t seen it yet), or a very intimidating ruler to keep them all here starving together. Then again, it was his family’s home fortress, was it not? Perhaps there was also some true loyalty in the men here and they needed to be neither baited nor forced. Davos had always found that sort of devotion commendable.

He was just listening to a couple of guards tell him about the tribulations of the last months when Stannis rushed through the door of the hall they had brought him to. The men grew quiet as he pointed his finger at Davos.

“Come with me,” he commanded.

Davos nodded at the guards and did as he was asked, curious and frightened at once. Stannis was silent as he led him through the courtyard. It was a bleak place, all stone and trampled earth, and it would have laid in shadow even if it had been day. Maybe it was his imagination that made it seem so constricting, though. Davos was not someone who frequented a lot of castles, or spent much time between stone walls at all, for that matter. Also, while he could not see them, the knowledge of attackers bearing down on all sides ready to pounce was not something you could easily push out of your mind. What must it have been like to stay in a place like this for as long as Stannis and his men had?

They stepped through a low wooden door into the giant tower that ruled the middle of the courtyard. Up a flight of stairs, they ended up in a room lined with more books than Davos had ever seen in one place. The maester sat in the middle, regarding the two of them carefully as they entered. Davos saw how he seized him up, gaze lowering briefly to rest on Davos’ stomach or his naked lower arms, he couldn’t quite say. The old man breathed out audibly and looked up at Stannis standing stiffly by Davos’ side.

“Did you show him?”

“Not out there.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Stannis grabbed the hem of his left sleeve and drew it up with one swift movement. Davos saw that his arm was decorated with black letters, smaller and more than his own. A soulmate mark, he realised.

“Look at this,” Stannis demanded.

Davos did as he was asked, but eventually gave a small shrug.

“It seems long for a first sentence,” he volunteered, “but I can’t read.”

Stannis stared at him, then back at the maester.

“Read it to him, Cressen,” he bit out.

Maester Cressen cleared his throat.

“My name won’t mean anything to you, my lord,” he said with a voice like a septon reciting a holy book, “but I’m someone who finds his way easily in the dark.”

Davos said nothing. His head was suddenly empty of all words. As the silence stretched on, Maester Cressen finally asked: “You know what yours says, do you not?”

“Of course I do, but…”

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Davos had noted that Stannis had said those words, but with a crossbow pointed at his head and his blood still boiling with excitement and trembling fear, he had paid it little heed. After all, the gods did not match orphans from Flea Bottom to the brothers of men who could vie for the throne, everyone knew that, or all the world would have been in constant turmoil. It supposedly happened every once in a blue moon, but that was for tavern stories and love songs.

Again, silence reigned. Davos was the one who first found his voice now.

“Let us shake hands, my lord,” he said. “This can’t be true, it makes no sense. I promise you, I have not even a bastard’s drop of blue blood in me.”

And yet, as Stannis grabbed his wrist hard enough that Davos wondered if he planned to break it, the letters on their arms gleamed red like fire. It looked quite beautiful, Davos thought. It was terrifying to think about, but it was as pretty as the tales told of the first touch.

Though there was no heat, Stannis let go off him like he’d been burned and straightened his shoulders, staring Davos down. Davos didn’t know what to say, so once more he kept his mouth shut. 

“I have to see to it that no one gets into the food,” Stannis muttered, eventually, and with that he was out of the door, leaving Davos with Maester Cressen and his hundred books. He lowered his gaze at the writing on his arm, which was slowly fading back to its former black colour. Looking up again, he found the maester watching him.

“I never thought stories like that were true,” Davos said quietly.

“You are young. If you were as old as me, you would know most unbelievable things happen at least once in one’s lifetime,” Maester Cressen answered and sighed.

-

In the grey of the morning, Davos stood on the battlements watching the sea. The sun had dispersed the clouds, and the ships he’d navigated with bated breath last night sat on the blue sparkling water like children’s toys in a quiet puddle, pretty and bright with their colourful Arbour sails. He’d expected the sight to be elating only a few hours ago, but now disappointment gnawed at his stomach and trepidation gripped his heart tight.

Davos had hoped to walk out of Storm’s End with a purse full of gold coins to start a new life. He had found his soulmate instead. It would have been a trade well worth it under any other circumstances; if it had been one of the guardsmen, or the castle smith, he would have been overjoyed. But what could come of a union between a smuggler and a lord of one of the most important houses in Westeros, soon perhaps a prince? This was not a song, nor a tale for children. Davos had known some smallfolk lovers of rich and noble men back in Flea Bottom. One woman had been cast out with boiled water poured over her face to ruin her beauty so no one would believe her if she told; others were threatened at swordpoint never to return to the ones that had still claimed to love them a week ago. A few had gone to their lord’s house and never returned at all. Even those still favoured feared for their positions and guarded them with fear in their eyes, like cursed treasures that they knew could easily be snatched away at any moment and leave them ruined. He had dreamed of a loving wife or husband and now all he could hope to be was a concubine...

Which was, of course, already the _better_ option. Those people he had known had just been lovers, but Davos knew well what highborn men and women did with soulmates that did not suit them anymore. As long as the writing was on their arm they were connected. Other nobles would look upon them with suspicion, wondering when the troublemaker would come back into their life, and not give their sons and daughters up for marriage as freely because of it. And so, what was there to do but make sure the words vanished permanently?

Stannis had not managed to stay in a room with Davos once he had been sure of the truth, which did not bode well for him.

Davos pushed off the merlons. He had to at least try and shift his fate, talk to this man if he could. Maybe something was to be salvaged yet.

A knight, who smelled like onions, was all too happy to show him the way to where Stannis was to be found. He, too, was standing at the battlements, but those looking out over the land. Davos glanced down. There were palisades on the meadow, trenches, tents as big as houses.

“They’ve almost built a village down there.”

Stannis flinched and shot up straight to stare at him. Davos swallowed his anguish and smiled pleasantly.

“They have,” Stannis said, clasping his hands behind his back. “But they’re getting complacent, feasting and whoring before our walls. If an army came to sweep them up, they would just have to light a few fires in the camp to make them crawl out like cockroaches.”

“Will there be an army?” Davos asked.

“That depends on Robert’s success in King’s Landing. I suspect Eddard Stark will move down here with his forces... if they win.”

It was a bit dream-like to hear these names out of Stannis’ mouth, knowing that he was personally acquainted with all the high men and women that Davos knew only from tenth-hand gossip. 

They watched the camp. A few men stood by the bushes emptying their bladders. Someone was making a fire under a big metal kettle. A young lad led two horses from one tent to another.

“I wanted to talk to you,” Davos said.

“Well, you are,” Stannis answered curtly. “So?”

Davos took a deep breath. Stannis did not seem to him like a man who wanted people to beat around the bush with courtesies, so he’d spare them both that dance.

“Please let me live.”

Stannis turned to stare at him, his dark blue eyes on Davos’ face.

“What are you talking about?”

“I know I’m not the soulmate you have wished for and that a better marriage surely awaits you, but consider that I didn’t make the choice, either. You are right, I broke the king’s law. Perhaps I must pay for that, by the hands of gods or men, and that will be justice. But this... I had no say in this. If your brother or his men come to free us, just let me go. Forget about the payment for the food, forget you met me. I promise you on all the little honour a smuggler has that you will never see me again.”

It irked his pride to be begging for his life, but what choice did he have? He did not want to die and this castle was Stannis’ domain, teeming with his men, and even starved as they were they outnumbered Davos in droves. Unwittingly, he had trapped himself with his possible hangman.

Stannis ground his teeth again; Davos could see it in the twitch of his jaw. “You think I want to kill you to be rid of the mark,” Stannis said quietly.

Davos nodded his head. 

Stannis turned his back to him and Davos half expected him to walk off again. He had a feeling Stannis was really considering it, too. However, he shot around instead, moving his feet at shoulders’ width as if he was preparing to fend off a charging attacker.

“I have never had any intention of murdering my soulmate. I don’t think much of gods, but clearly _something_ is working its powers through those bonds, a fool could see that. I plan to wed you.”

Though Stannis spoke in the tone of one who announced his plans to beat down an enemy castle’s doors, Davos could see a flicker of uncertainty in his eyes.

“Marry me?” he echoed, uncomprehending.

“I know I’ll be ridiculed, by my brother first and foremost. My bondmate, a commoner and criminal, what does that say about me? I don’t know, but it’s the truth and there is no sense in hiding from it. Even if I killed you, it would be no less so.” He gestured outside the castle walls. “What guarantee do I have that one of these would make me a better husband, anyway? The fine lords bannermen have been switching allegiances like garments while this war has been going on, currying favour and biding their time. I have knights in this very castle who tried to betray me to the enemy because they could not bear to outlast them. If you hadn’t come along, we would have eaten them instead of onions,” he spat. “You may be a smuggler, but at least you told me your intentions outright.”

For all his reasoning, that hint of insecurity was well alive in his face and Davos could see it whenever Stannis dared glance his way. As Davos still hadn’t found his words when Stannis was finished, his voice finally betrayed it, too. “Well?” he asked, hands clenching and unclenching. “I can’t make you wed me if you don’t want to...”

Finally, the spell was broken. Davos managed a smile, a true one this time. Maybe Stannis had been frustrated last night. Maybe he had been shocked. But apparently, he was also shy, somewhere under his rough hide. A truly heartless, self-assured man would have pushed harder, explained less, demanded more of one of so little consequence as Davos.

“I imagine you _can_ make me wed you, my lord, but I am grateful you leave me a choice. I had always hoped I would marry my soulmate, I just did not expect...”

He looked over his shoulder at Storm’s End, its endless battlements, its giant tower. Wind tore at his hair, beat it in his face. He brushed it behind his ear as he turned back to him. Stannis nodded, seemed to understand despite the fact that Davos didn’t quite know what to say.

“But I will,” Davos decided.

He’d wanted a way out. He’d wanted a different life. Destiny had apparently written the map there on his arm and put the rudder in the hands of this man. Davos knew little of him, but he liked the stubbornness and bravery that he felt tenfold now being himself captured behind the walls and wondering how they had fared here for all these months. His hard honesty was no insult to one who’d grown up among those who were already at the bottom and feared not running their mouth anymore. At the very least Davos doubted Stannis would find his lack of courtier manners a drawback. Besides, he was his soulmate. The gods might have been drunk when they made this match, but they had still made it, after all.

Stannis nodded his head once more. For a moment, his shoulders, which had been square and tightly set, sank in an exhale, but he caught himself.

They looked down at the camp again.

“If we survive, I’ll wed you,” Stannis muttered.

-

As Davos descended the stairs from the battlements, his heart still thumping, he found himself facing Maester Cressen on his way up. He stopped to give a small bow to him.

“Davos, have you found Lord Stannis? He likes to stay up here to think.”

“Yes, I’ve been led to him.”

“What did he speak about?” the maester asked, pulling at the sleeve of his robes. He seemed nervous.

Davos opened his mouth to answer, but then wondered if it was alright to do so. You had to be careful who to give such strange news too.

“We discussed matters,” he said, grasping his left arm. “I’m sure lord Stannis can give you more details.”

“He already did. He said he’s planning to wed you, but I was not sure if...” Maester Cressed stopped. “He’s a very direct man, but some things he finds hard to put in words. I didn’t know if he would come ask you.”

Davos had to smile.

“I came to him. We made it to that point eventually,” he said. Perhaps he should not tell the maester that he had suspected his would-be husband of planning to have him murdered, either.

Maester Cressen nodded. Davos regarded him for a moment.

“You seem to have the lord’s trust.”

“He’s known me since he was a babe,” the maester said.

“What do you think of his idea?”

To that, the old man gave a shake of his head.

“I cannot answer truthfully to that, Davos. As I said, I have known him long, and when you get to know people so well, you start to care less about what they should do, and more about their happiness. Those two don’t always coincide.”

“I will cause him much grieve with the nobles,” Davos said, by way of agreement.

“No, that’s not it. Lord Stannis has never given much heed to what people think of his actions if he deems them just. Less than he should, in truth,” the maester answered. “Your reputation does not matter to him, but the things you do will. See to it you don’t cause him grieve as a husband.”

“Yes, maester,” Davos said like a promise.

He could feel the man’s eyes on his back as he descended the stairs. If he made Stannis a faithful and loving husband, he had a feeling that Maester Cressen would come to like him. Here was to hoping the same was true for Stannis.

-

Despite the turbulent, unbelievable beginning to his stay at the castle, Davos learned that for the most part, sieges were not very exciting. Now that he had arrived with his onions and salt fish, and the slim glimmer of hope existed within the garrison that in the worst of times, he may slip out again and find more food for them, there was no immediate reason for mutiny. People did not move much, for fear of growing hungry more quickly, so most days they just sat or stood around on guard duty, telling stories and playing dice over copper coins that seemed worthless when they hadn’t seen a market in months. Davos spent most days sitting with the lowborn guards, who of all in the castle liked him best and were easiest to talk to.

Davos wanted to speak to Stannis more, too, but Stannis was a difficult man to approach. If you had nothing new to tell him, he’d ask you why you’d come at all. Davos could have been honest, of course – told him he wanted to get to know him. But though Stannis planned to wed him, Davos was not so bold yet. He may have been Stannis’ soulmate, but he was also a criminal, a stranger, and a man from the smallfolk. Stannis had insisted he needn’t fear him up there on the battlements, but life had taught Davos better.

Still, he made an effort to come to Stannis when he could. One evening, Davos found him sitting in the big castle hall which would have been used for feasts in better days, poring over a book.

“What are you reading, my lord?” Davos asked.

Stannis looked up at him. “Septon Barth’s _Unnatural History_.”

“An unnatural history of what?”

“Dragons.”

“That sounds interesting.”

“Most maesters are terrible writers, so no,” Stannis muttered. “But there is not much else to do for me at the moment but pick through Cressen’s dusty tomes.”

“I would if I could,” Davos agreed.

Playing dice with the guards had already gotten boring when there was nothing else to do. It was not like on a ship, where there was always the course to hold, the wind to think of, the sky to watch. Storm’s End would not fall into the sea even if Davos did nothing but sleep bundled up in a corner all day. It would stand as long as its doors were not opened.

Stannis glanced at him sideways. “If you are to be married into a noble house, you should know how to read.”

“Well,” Davos said, “I agree, but people who are to be married into noble houses are usually taught from childhood. My mother didn’t know how to read, either. The septon was the only one around who could, where I lived.”

“Then I will teach you,” Stannis said.

Davos fell silent with surprise. He’d expected that maybe Stannis would send him to Maester Cressen for the purpose, but though Stannis looked at him with his usual stern, tight-lipped expression, it seemed he was serious about doing himself.

“I would be happy if you did, my lord,” Davos answered with a smile.

-

Stannis took his newly assigned duty as Davos’ teacher very seriously. They sat each morning and evening in a small room in the big tower. Davos would be copying letters down onto a piece of paper at Stannis’ command, over and over again, wondering why he could not make them as smooth as the ones he saw in the books before him, or he’d be struggling at snail’s pace through texts Stannis chose for him.

With the lesson came a boon Davos hadn’t expected. Stannis was not so awkward around him now, greeted him more freely in the castle, spoke to him out of turn, like he had waited for an excuse to do so. Davos felt that he had made a small hole in the dam holding Stannis back and watched the trickle of water with fascination now.

“Write your name,” Stannis told him on the fourth day, as he had for the last two.

Davos did, for he remembered it now, then lifted the quill again and set it down once more, adding another word.

“I figure I should know how to write this, too, my lord.”

“Stannis has two ‘n’,” Stannis said, but the shadow of a smile was on his lips.

Reading was even harder than Davos had expected it to be. He took it letter by letter, word by word, often so slowly he forgot the start of the sentence by the time he had arrived at the end, having to ask again and again what he was even looking at. To make it worse, different scribes wrote letters differently.

“I never really thought about that,” Stannis said, as they sat over an ornamental variation of an ‘a’ that Davos hadn’t seen before. “I suppose I must have as a boy, though. I learned to read alongside my brother Robert – late for him and early for me. I have forgotten the frustrations. When you know the rest of the letters and the words around it, you will be able to guess which letter is missing.”

Stannis rarely talked about his family, so Davos found himself perking up.

“Were you close with your brother… with His Grace? As children, I mean.”

They already pretended the crown was won in here. Davos could never decide if that was bad luck or not.

“We were close in age, that’s about how close we were,” Stannis said, raising a brow. “We are not of the same temperament and never have been.”

“But you support him?”

“Of course I do. I am his younger brother, it’s my duty.” Stannis looked him over. “What about you? Do you have siblings?”

“I should think so. My father made me by accident, so I doubt I’m the only one.” Davos laughed. “I have no way of knowing about them, since he never came back, but I must think they’re out there. My mother died of a winter cold when I was four or five... I barely remember now. On that side, I’m the only one.”

“My parents are dead, too. Though – I was fourteen when it happened, so close to a man grown,” Stannis said, swallowing the hint of sadness that had snuck into his voice.

“If you love them, I don’t think losing your parents is ever easy, even for a man grown,” Davos answered softly. “How did they die, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Their ship was dashed in a storm on the stones in Shipbreaker Bay. Robert and me watched it happen from the battlements. They drowned to the last of hundred men. Only a fool they’d brought home to entertain us survived,” Stannis answered with a humourless huff of breath. “The very stones you avoided, smuggler. If they had had someone of your talents at the helm, perhaps they would have made it back alive.”

“I am sorry about your parents. Sometimes the sea is monstrously unpredictable.”

It was, however, the sign of a very daring captain to say the least to bring what must have been a sizeable ship into this death trap of a bay in a storm. Davos would not have attempted it, and he’d sailed the bay on a cloudy night in total darkness, studded with enemy ships. Saying as much to Stannis now would not have been kind, though. Why tell him his parents may have had a chance to live with a more prudent captain? He likely suspected as much and it was too late now.

“So it is,” Stannis muttered. “Who took you in when your mother died?”

“Nobody. We had no family left, and in Flea Bottom, everyone already has enough mouths to feed. But I got by. People can be quite friendly even when they have little. I usually had a place to sleep. As for food… well, I was small and fast, and I knew when the merchants were busy putting up their stalls on the market and wouldn’t pay attention.”

“A thief from the start,” Stannis noted. “I should be angry, and yet I know if you had not been daring and broken the law, you probably would not have survived, and I would have been without my soulmate.”

“And it’s only because I break the king’s law that I ever found my way to you…”

Stannis leafed through the book that laid open before them. Shaking his head, he smiled briefly. It was a rare sight and Davos thought it made him look very handsome.

“The gods are as inscrutable as ever. Let’s continue, smuggler,” Stannis said.

-

“These pictures are beautiful.”

“You are not here to learn to look at pictures.”

Davos smiled, but didn’t let Stannis’ complaint deter him. There was a drawing of a dragon, great and terrible, coiled around the hovels of a whole village.

“I wonder, were they ever really that big?”

“Maybe in Old Valyria,” Stannis said thoughtfully. “I read the last dragons the Targaryen had were barely more than overgrown lizards and even that was some time ago.”

“Really? Who had the last ones?”

“Aegon the Third, if I remember correctly. That was more than a hundred years ago. Aegon the Fifth managed to burn down himself and most of Summerhall trying to hatch some empty dragon eggs. I wonder if it’d have been worth it even if they had come out...” Stannis stopped himself and gave Davos a reproachful glance. “You always take me off track. You’re supposed to be reading.”

“But I’m learning now, too. Besides, I like listening to your voice, my lord.”

Stannis stared at him like a doe at a hunter and Davos had to keep himself from laughing. Reading books with Stannis was his favourite part of the lessons. Even if he fought against every word until his head hurt, he would often get Stannis to explain him more than the texts did if he asked the right questions. Stannis was a smart man, and if Davos could throw in a few words to fluster or please him while he listened, it was even better.

However, it was never good to push it too far with Stannis. Davos gave him a last smile and turned back to the page.

“In... t-he... the. In the ye... ar...”

-

Davos did his best to learn when he was on his own, too, but there were many times when he got caught up by something small yet insurmountable, and it was in these moments, when he didn’t have Stannis to help and distract him, that it felt like he was constantly treading on the spot. To practice this morning, he was copying the clean writ on his arm in which Stannis’ first words were captured, but he kept fumbling the letters, turning them around in his head when he was not looking at his skin, and even when he was, he felt more like he was tracing a picture.

Davos dropped the quill so he wouldn’t break it and then slammed his fist against the table. The sudden burst of pain took the edge of the mounting frustration he’d felt for days. With a sigh, he shook out his hand after a moment of glaring at the wall. Back to work...

“What are you doing?”

Davos jumped in his chair. Framed by the doorway stood Stannis, arms crossed over his chest, frowning at him.

“Just... practicing my letters, my lord,” he muttered, embarrassed that Stannis had witnessed his foolish outburst.

Stannis gave him an impatient look. He did not enjoy people stating the obvious, nor did he humour them when they tried to dodge his questions with unimportant chatter. Davos knew this by now. He shouldn’t have tried.

“I’m just so slow to learn, my lord,” he muttered, unhappily.

“You have been practicing for three weeks and you already know the letters. You read, if slowly. Most children take half a year to learn that much,” Stannis said, sitting down beside him. “How much faster do you want it to go?”

“I’m not a boy, though,” Davos answered, “and I don’t want you to lose your patience with me.”

He didn’t want Stannis to see him as stupid, in truth. He wanted to prove to both of them there was a reason he had been chosen as his soulmate.

“You are losing your patience, not me,” Stannis said.

Davos glanced at his page of unsteady scribbles. That much was true. Though he scolded him for his mistakes and barely ever gave more than a nod when Davos managed to do something correctly for once, Stannis never grew short or angry with him.

“You are right. Forgive me, my lord.”

He felt a touch on his shoulder. It was so unexpected that he flinched. Quickly, Stannis drew his hand back and instead grabbed the quill Davos had discarded, awkwardly turning it in his hand.

Hasty steps prevented Davos from speaking to him. He turned to the door once more to see Maester Cressen.

“My lord!” he gasped, waving a scroll. “Your brother just sent this!”

“He sent a raven?” Stannis asked, surprised, as the maester placed the letter down in front of him.

Davos leaned curiously towards him. There was barely any communication with the outside world. Everything that was important was too much so to be written down in a letter than could be intercepted by the falcons or arrows of their opponents surrounding the castle. If there was one, it had to be a message of such great note that those sitting outside would hear about it either way from their own people. In short, it meant armies and fleets moving, it meant victory or defeat.

Stannis tore the seal open and scanned the paper quickly.

“They sacked King’s Landing. Aerys Targaryen is no more.” He stared at the words. “Eddard Stark is riding for Storm’s End.”

“Thank the gods,” Cressen breathed.

Davos felt his heart jumping in his chest. He’d never expected to be closer to matters like this than hearing them from a town crier. Now he was sitting next to the brother of the king as he read the news of his sibling taking the throne. Davos wondered, suddenly, if the people of King’s Landing had had to suffer a lot. Hopefully, they had not burned the lower districts as happened so often in war... And, his mind brought fourth, as thoughts scrambled through it without direction and end, they might finally leave these thrice-damned walls! Davos had only been here some days short of a month, he could barely imagine what the relief was like for those who had sat here since the start of the siege. 

Hands grabbed his head and wrenched it around. Davos had barely a moment to be surprised as Stannis placed a crushing kiss on his mouth. He pulled back a moment later, apparently more shocked by his own bravado than Davos was. Cressen looked on as if he’d seen a dragon crash through the window. Davos had to laugh. He put his arms around Stannis’ neck and kissed him back.

“My lord, it’s over!”

“Let’s not celebrate until the doors are opened,” Stannis muttered, but even through his embarrassment, he was smiling.

-

In the end, there was not much of a fight. The lords outside the gates must have gotten the same letters as them and realised there was no point in bloodshed over a dead ruler. King’s Landing was taken and though the knights out there were not starved, they seemed to be weary of waiting all the same. The morning that Eddard Stark’s army filled the horizon like a shadow over the land, Stannis and Davos watched with the men from the battlements as the leaders of the Tyrell army met Eddard to tip their banners and bend their knees.

Stannis greeted Eddard Stark down in the courtyard. The Northern lord was Stannis’ young age, too, but like him his face seemed always overcast with shadow which made him look older. His soldiers carried food into the castle and Stannis had to bark at his men so they didn’t tear it uncooked from their hands.

“Who are you, ser?” Eddard Stark asked Davos, who was sitting by Stannis’ side in the festival hall, where the food had finally ended up on the tables. “I’m afraid I don’t know many of the southern lords.”

“That would not have gotten you far, either,” Stannis said. “Davos is a smuggler. He came by ship. Without his onions, we might not have made it until you arrived.”

“What a bold undertaking,” Eddard Stark murmured.

“He’s also my soulmate. I intend to wed him once the war is over,” Stannis continued, spearing a piece of meat with his knife.

Eddard Stark looked baffled and Davos smiled at him. He had a feeling he’d meet many puzzled gazes in the next weeks and months, but to hear Stannis sound almost happy when he explained his plans made it worth it.

-

They travelled the road past Bronzegate and across the Wendwater through the King’s Wood to join the new king in the Red Keep. When Stannis went to meet him in the throne room, Davos waited outside with Stannis’ men. However, not twenty minutes after his soulmate had gone, a knight came to fetch Davos, too.

The young king on the Iron Throne was quite obviously Stannis’ brother, just as tall and broad in chest and shoulder, with the same dark hair and eyes of blue, though his were brighter than Stannis’, much as his expression was, all broad smiles. Next to him stood an older man wearing the coat of arms of the House of Arryn on his mantle. He regarded Davos thoughtfully as he stepped in. Davos did not know him, but he suspected him to be Jon Arryn, who had raised the king and Eddard Stark as wards, as Stannis had told him once.

Davos sank to his knee.

“Come, come, rise, smuggler,” the king said, immediately. “I hear you’ll wed my brother, so you must stand beside us.”

Hesitantly, Davos got to his feet and came a little closer. The Iron Throne was terrifying so near. He’d heard tales of it, but it looked so martial with the dozens of swords that pointed in all directions and framed the man sitting on it like some wild Essos god of war.

“I congratulate you on your victory, your Highness,” Davos said, somewhat cowed.

Robert laughed at him.

“He has manners, your smuggler,” he said, boxing Stannis on the arm. “Does he know yet what he’ll pay for his husband and his knighthood?”

“Of course he does,” Stannis said, frowning. “I talked it over with him on our way here.”

“So you agree with my brother’s mad plan to make you four fingertips shorter?” Robert shook his head. “I must admit, if I had to marry a man who wanted to do that to me, I’d fear he’d chop off my cock the next time I annoy him. He saved your life, Stannis, and he’s your soulmate. Won’t you ever be lenient?”

“He broke the law,” Stannis said slowly, as if talking to a child.

Robert rolled his eyes. “Don’t listen to my brother. I can pardon you, smuggler. You likely saved me my family’s home, so it’s not like I haven’t a reason.”

“It is your Highness’ choice, of course,” Davos said. “But if it’s all the same to you, I would do what my Lord Stannis asks of me. He agreed to be the one to dole out my punishment. I find his offer fair.”

He saw a slight smile on Stannis’ lips and couldn’t help but catch his gaze for a moment, chest feeling warm.

“It would go to some lengths to prove that Davos has put his past behind him, at least,” the man he assumed to be Jon Arryn said.

“I think I’m in a madhouse.” Robert waved his hand to show he had given up. “As you wish, then, Davos, you may lose your fingers to my brother’s blade before your vigil.” He grinned impertinently at Stannis and him. “But don’t come complaining to me that you could have made good use of his fingers on your cock, Stannis. I know you don’t know anything about that sort of thing, but you might eventually…”

Maybe it was the fact that Robert talked like so many of the brash young men Davos had met in taverns, which made him much less intimidating than he should be, or that Davos could see how obviously angry his words made Stannis and felt irritation rise in turn, but Davos heard himself say: “I still have a mouth, your Grace.”

For a moment, Robert stared at him, then he burst into laughter.

“You may do my brother some good after all, Davos!” he exclaimed. “Maybe the gods knew what they were doing when they made this match.”

“Don’t talk like that,” Stannis scolded Davos, a hint of satisfaction in his voice.

“I apologise,” Davos answered, not meaning it.

“I hope the next applicant for my ear is as diverting as you. Who am I speaking to, anyway, Jon?”

As the king turned to his advisor, Stannis descended the steps of the throne and took Davos’ left hand.

“Your vigil can take place in two day’s time,” he said, looking down at the fingers laying in his. “We best do this today.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“You will stay in my chambers this night so I can make sure your wounds don’t fester or cause you a fever.”

Davos smiled at the tender gesture he could see hidden behind the dry reason Stannis brought forth.

“I’m sure that’s why you want him to stay in your chambers,” Robert jeered from behind Stannis’ back. “Here is some advice, brother: if you plan to fuck a man, don’t hack off parts of him beforehand. You’ll spoil the mood.”

Stannis grit his teeth and grabbed Davos by the arm, pulling him down the long aisle of the throne room.

“Gods forgive me, I’m glad he survived the fight, but I forgot how much I didn’t miss his presence when I was locked up in Storm’s End,” Stannis muttered, as they were out the doors.

“I’m sure being on the throne will make him grow out of the worst of it,” Davos said.

“I suppose there is always hoping.” Stannis shook his head. “Well, be that as it may. I still need to find a butcher’s knife. I will meet you later in the small hall.”

Davos nodded his head and looked around to check if they were alone before he kissed his soulmate, as they always did now when meeting or parting away from prying eyes. Losing his fingers would be the first step towards his marriage, he knew, to becoming the man who would deserve Stannis’ hand.

“I will go practice my letters some more,” he said. “I think I can almost write the sentence on your arm now, as you asked me to. It’s awfully long, though. I should have been less wordy.”

“You should have started with your name, for one. You had me wonder for all those years,” Stannis said mildly.

Davos laughed.

“You wouldn’t have guessed who I was even if I had said it, my lord. And may I remind you that the first thing you did was curse me?”

“I think _you_ are going to curse _me_ tonight,” Stannis answered.

-

There was a maester Davos didn’t know holding a vial with milk of the poppy at the ready. Robert had come, and several dozen knights. It might not have been as interesting if Stannis did not plan to wed the man he mauled tonight, but this was a bloody ceremony everyone wanted to witness. There was more than one apprehensive face in the light of the torches, but Davos’ was not one of them. He smiled at Stannis when he stepped up next to him.

The surface on which they would do the deed was a smooth stone placed on a table. Davos laid his hand on top. His sleeve caught on the edge of the stone, allowing him to see the last two words of his soulmate mark. He looked up at Stannis.

“Are you ready?” Stannis asked.

“As ready as I’ll ever be, my lord.”

Davos spread out his hand. The knuckles did not line up right. It would be four slashes, Davos knew. Stannis used his free hand to pin Davos’ palm to the stone.

He did not close his eyes as Stannis raised the cleaver.

When the blade slammed down and separated his finger at the first joint, Davos felt nothing, and it was only when Stannis had reached the third finger that the pain overwhelmed the shock, drove tears into his eyes. He saw his hand only as a smear in a rapidly growing sea of red. By the forth finger, he was whimpering.

Someone stepped to his side and, blinking, knees shaking, Davos realised it was the maester, holding the milk of the poppy to his mouth. He drank without question, gagging on it, and as tears spilled down his cheeks he could see more clearly, stared at the bleeding parts of his fingers that were now separated from his hand.

It was done.

“I want to keep them,” he said, strangled, following a sudden thought. They would be the sign of his devotion to his soulmate – not a symbol the gods had dictated for him, but one for the commitment he had made by his free will.

Stannis stared down at him in confusion, but nodded his head. Davos forced a smile. The pain alone was enough to put black butterflies at the edges of his vision, but he was sure it was the thick heat of the milk of the poppy that really made his head spin. It felt like liquid flame going down his throat, into his stomach, turning his limbs to lead. He collapsed sideways and felt arms close around him before the world went black.

-

When he next woke, he was in a dimly lit room wrapped in blankets. Pain pounded up his left arm, dull and hard. He looked to find his hand in bandages. As he moved his head, there was a shuffling sound to his other side. Stannis leaned over him.

“Davos?”

“Stannis... my lord,” Davos corrected himself, tiredly.

“The Others take me, for a moment I thought you’d died,” Stannis said quietly.

“The milk of the poppy your maester makes is much better than the kind I’m used to,” Davos answered, tongue sluggish. “Our peddlers stretch it with water, I think...”

Stannis pulled the blanket up to his chin. His face softened a little.

“At least you finally woke. No curses?” he asked.

“No curses,” Davos muttered.

“Do you want to sleep some more?”

“Maybe. I’m just a bit dazed right now.” Davos looked around at him. He saw that there was a bookcase on the wall of the room they were in, right next to the door. “Would you read to me, my lord?”

Stannis followed his gaze. “This once,” he agreed. “Since you can’t be expected to do it yourself right now.”

Davos smiled, watched as Stannis went over to the bookcase and chose a tome. He cared little what it was, in truth, he doubted he would stay awake for it. But as Stannis sat down next to him and began reading in his deep, solemn voice, his heart flew like a bird in his chest. He leaned his head against Stannis’ thigh and felt Stannis’ hand lower and run through his hair. Looking up, he caught just a glimpse of the letters on his arm before his eyes drifted shut again.


End file.
